To Be Continued
by fourthelement
Summary: Meet Marisa. She found a pair of boys in the snow. Now what should she do? [Note: Some MarySueness. Be warned.]


To Be Continued . . .

Marisa sighed. She loved Christmas. Actually, Christmas wasn't for three days, and snow covered the ground. It fell in soft, fluffy flakes, landing in her dark, chocolate-brown hair. She was walking towards the sledding hill on the outskirts of her town, LaVarille, Vermont. Her younger brother, Karl, had left his sled on the hill.

As she walked down the lane, she saw someone at the top of the hill. The mysterious person sat on something, adjusting something on its lap. _Karl's sled,_ she thought, and watched as it began its way down the hill. She thought how angry Karl would be if his sled were stolen, and began to go towards it. The sled slid down the hill, then past the storefronts with the colored lights in the windows, and past the huge Christmas tree on the town square. Carolers nearby sang on, oblivious to the whizzing sled. She caught it just before it ran into the town pond.

The mysterious person was a boy, who looked to be about Marisa's age. She would be thirteen on Christmas. On his lap was a toddler, no older than a year. The pair looked frozen together. The toddler cried; the older boy's grip was hurting him. Marisa pulled them along on the sled towards home.

In the community, things were horrible. Fiona couldn't understand what had happened to the citizens. She had horrific dreams, thoughts, and visions. Some were nice, like a soft breeze on the water, but there were a lot of bad ones, too, like the one where she lay on the ground, her arm hurting, and a boy not too much older than her dying before her eyes.

She realized how she had murdered innocent people who should have lived. She felt so guilty that she could have died. A new memory surfaced, but she pushed it away. She knew they had come because of the Receivers. Jonas had left, probably died, and the senior Receiver had released himself. She remembered a better memory, about ten people around a tree. There were six children that all looked like each other, but not exactly alike, and two who must have been the parents, and two of the Old. The two Old smiled as the children gave boxes to each other, the parents (_well, at least they seem to be the parents_) and the Old, and opened them. Fiona felt many things as the watched the scene. _Warmth, happiness, enjoyment . . . Love._

Finally, Marisa reached home, dragging the sled behind her. The older boy didn't wake. Her mother, upon seeing a half-frozen child, ran to find a warm blanket and covered him, then went into the kitchen and made soup. Marisa put the two boys in the den, where the family's shaggy sheepdog, Nolan, laid next to the older boy.

When the soup was done, Marisa's mother, Mrs. Reid, brought it in a bowl with a spoon and left it with Marisa. The small child slurped the soup from the spoon eagerly.

"Hey, there, kid," said Marisa. "What's your name?"

"G-gay! Gay!" The child's teeth chattered.

She smiled slightly. "Really, kid?"

"Bee! Gay-bee-rall!" He clapped his small hands.

"Gabriel?"

The boy nodded vigorously. "Gay-bee-rall!" He insisted.

After a while, the older boy woke up. "Am I in Elsewhere?" he mumbled. Marisa moved closer with the soup. "No. You're in LaVarille, Vermont, in the home of the Reids."

He blinked at her. He gave her a very suspicious look. "Who are you?"

"I'm Marisa Reid. I live on the White Woods cattle and livestock farm in LaVarille, Vermont, where I help my parents and my four brothers run the farm." He looked slightly less suspicious. Extending his hand, he introduced himself. "I'm Jonas. Jonas – um –" He glanced around the room.

"Are you a runaway?"

Jonas stared at her in wonder at first, then with guilt. "Yes."

Marisa shook her head. "Well, we can probably let you stay here for the night. We do need some help herding the sheep." She looked out the window and changed the subject. "Your little brother said his name was Gabriel. Is that right?"

The boy opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of what he was about to say and changed it. "Yes, it is. He just can't pronounce it just right."

She handed him the soup. "Here, eat this. It's good for you."

He took the bowl and ate it, his hands trembling helplessly.

The light faded outside Fiona's window. She lay on her bed. It was the end of another day, and Fiona felt horrible for her actions again. She had to release (_kill_, she thought miserably, _murder_) another man today. His name was Erik. He loved life so much.

After dinner, she received another memory. It was different from the other ones. Jonas was in it. So was the Receiver, the one who was gone. She watched through his eyes as he snuck out of the house in the darkness. She felt Gabriel in his arms as he put the child in the child seat of a stolen bicycle. She remembered dimly that Jonas's father's bicycle had been stolen the night he disappeared.

Fiona gasped. The memory played on in her head, on and on. She finally understood where Jonas had gone and how to join him.

That night, she took her bicycle to the river.

Marisa re-entered the den the next morning. Jonas was sitting up, playing with Gabriel and Nolan. The huge dog ran when he saw his mistress. "Hi, Jonas, hello, Gabriel," she said, bending down to pick the child up. "Are you two all right?"

Jonas smiled. "Yes, but the dog is slobbering on my feet." Nolan, whose head rested on Jonas's foot, lifted his head up in acknowledgement of himself, and then resumed slobbering on the boy's leather shoes.

"Nolan, get off of Jonas and let him be," Marisa said sternly. The dog obediently stood and lumbered off towards the kitchen. She closed the door behind him. "Now," she said, "tell me the truth."

"What?" Jonas looked disbelieving.

"Where are you from? I know you aren't from around here. We had a girl appear when I was two, and she stayed with us. We have pictures of her. She was dressed the same way, and she also asked if she was in 'Elsewhere.'" Marisa folded her arms over her chest.

Now Jonas looked shocked. "Was her name Rosemary?"

She stared in wonder at him. "Yes, actually, that was. She lives on our farm, still, and helps out with the sheep and chickens."

"Can I go see her?" Jonas strained to sound calm.

"I suppose," Marisa said. "But if she's busy, we can't bother her."

Fiona was so tired. It was early evening, and she had bicycled all day, for almost two days. She had to find that mound of lightness! Jonas had gone down it to a better place; Elsewhere must be on the other side of that hill.

She fought the cold and hunger as she finally reached the hill, tears of joy running down her face and stinging in the cold as tiny pale flecks hit her face. She dropped the bicycle and climbed to the top. There, she found the brightness of a small town greeting her.

Fiona decided to go look for Jonas. She made her way towards a small house, where two people waited to be let inside.

"Rosemary, are you in there?" Marisa knocked on the door. "Rosemary, you have some visitors."

The door cracked open, and soft green eyes peered out. "Oh, it's you, Marisa." She opened the door.

Marisa and Jonas came in and sat on a small couch. The woman named Rosemary was very pretty, with reddish brown hair that set off her green eyes. "Rosemary, this is Jonas. He asked to see you. Do you know him?"

Jonas walked over to Rosemary and said softly, "I know about your father. I know what happened. I was the next one."

She stared at him for a moment, then gulped. "You – you were a Receiver?"

Marisa had no clue what either of them was talking about, but Jonas nodded. "But, Rosemary, they said you released yourself."

"I'll tell you all about it later. First, I think we should tell poor Marisa what we are talking about."

Indeed, Marisa was completely clueless.

Jonas began. "We – that is, Rosemary and I – are from a horrible place. I think it's the future of this place. There was no color or music. It was called the community. The community had a really bad thing called release. They said it was to send you out to the place called Elsewhere, but they only injected the person, and the injection would kill them.

"In this community, a single, special person held all the memories. The person was called the Receiver. He knew all memories and knew true pain, joy, and the wonderful thing called love.

"The day came when he became too old and needed a new Receiver. Rosemary was chosen."

Rosemary continued. "I was given many wonderful memories: a sled ride, a puppy, and a kitten to play with. I begged him to give me pain. I needed to know it all. Well, I couldn't handle it. I didn't get pain, but loneliness, and other pains. I applied for release. The man – he was so kind – only gave me something that would knock me out. I ran away."

Jonas picked up again. "I became the new Receiver ten years later. The old Receiver told me to call him the Giver. We later devised a plan and I ran away to make the rest of the community deal with my memories, and the Giver's. He was so pained with some of them."

Marisa sat silently. Jonas suddenly thought of something. "What year is this?"

She replied, "it's 2054."

Rosemary looked questioningly at Jonas, who said in a tight, strained voice, "The world went to Sameness in 2055. We learned that as Tens."

The girls gasped. "Oh, no," said Rosemary. "That means they're going to search for a Receiver of Memory."

There was a soft knock on the door. Rosemary opened it. A girl stood there. She had red hair and gentle brown eyes, which looked scared beyond belief.

Jonas stared. He croaked, "Fiona?"

The girl stepped in. "Jonas? I f-followed you out because I got your memory of leaving."

Marisa watched the three, and spoke. "Jonas, Fiona, you can stay at my home as long as you like. We could always use more stablehands, and I'm sure Mom and Dad would let you stay. We could even get you schooling."

"Thank you so much, Marisa," Jonas said.

Jonas and Fiona did stay on the farm. They stayed with Rosemary, who treated them and Gabriel as sons and a daughter. Marisa visited them and listened to the stories of the community, and told Fiona and Jonas how to act in the present place. They went to school and learned about everything that Jonas had seen in memories.

Fiona, Rosemary, and Jonas were brought into the Reid family. Jonas loved his new name: Jonas Michael Reid.

The world did indeed go to Sameness the next year. The government of LaVarille looked and looked for a Receiver of memory, and nobody fit until they searched the family living on the White Woods farm. They found the person they were looking for in a small cottage on the farm's land. The Receiver was already prepared to the job. They gave the new Receiver the pain and all the memories of times long past. She knew it all already.

The whole Reid family, including Jonas and Fiona, watched in awe as Marisa was proclaimed the first Receiver of Memory.


End file.
